Defends Repression Of The Armenians -nyt19151010d

DEFENDS REPRESSION OF THE ARMENIANS

Nobody's Business What Turkey Does to Them, Count von Reventlow Declares

BERLIN, Oct. 9, (via London.)--Count Ernst von Reventlow, military writer for the Tagezzeitung, in an article in that paper under the headline, "The Uproar About 'The Armenian Atrocities' Berlin," declares flatly that it is Turkey's own affairs how she deals with Armenian uprisings. His article was inspired by the report that Henry Morgenthau, the United States Ambassador to Turkey, had given Turkey notice that her relations with the United States would be endangered if the Armenian massacres were not stopped.

Count von Reventlow declares that he is unable to discuss the matter as he would like, but expresses the hope that Turkey will not allow herself to be frightened. He continues:

"If Turkey considers it necessary that Armenian uprisings and other intrigues be suppressed with all means possible, so that a repetition will be impossible, that does not constitute massacres or a justified and necessary character, the more justified and the more necessary from the fact that the Turkish empire is in its hardest fight for existence and has enough foreign enemies. To demand that it shall also nourish an internal enemy on its bosom, because that would suit the British and Americans, so to demand a great deal.

"The Turkish Empire has long had to endure that all the great powers who please and who wished to destroy, plunder or rob the Turks, should mix in their affairs. Now we should think that these times were finally passed. And they will indeed be passed as soon as the German Empire determinedly takes the standpoint that what its Turkish ally does with his revolutionary Armenians is an internal affairs which concerns him alone."

The writer expressed indignation at a report published by the Frunkfurter Zeitung that German Consuls had endeavored to modify the hardships, and declared that this standpoint was incomprehensible to him and that he considered it politically false.

"We Germans have to give an account neither to enemies nor neutrals of what the Turks do with their Armenians or what the German Consuls say about it," he declares. "The place of the German Empire and of every individual German is at the side of our Turkish ally, and that without criticism."